Best method to clean out hard drives of data/viruses for reuse?

What's the best method to clean out my old hard drives of data and viruses for reuse?

I have some older internal hard drives that I'd like to convert into external drives so I can use them for backups on my new machine. Now some of these drives have viruses and malware on them and I'd like to completely wipe them free of them so they will not come back to bite me. Should I use an antivirus like Avast to quarantine the viruses and malware first, and then use CC Cleaner to do a single-pass setting and reformat the drive? Would that be efficient enough? Or is there a better method to reformat these drives to ensure they are clean and ready for reuse? Bottom line: what would you do? Thanks in advance for the advice!

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However, while not necessary, you can use disk wiper tools like Eraser or CCleaner. These tools will rewrite every sector of data with new data. Any virus hiding will be overwritten, but like I said, reformatting should be enough.

But on the plus side, doing a full disk rewrite will make it very difficult for any one to recover any data that is on the hard drive. Even if you reformat the drive data can still be recover. And you can you encrypted backup to make you data safe, in case someone steal your hard drives.

Also don't do a full rewrite on SSD (Solid State drives), it will not work property and you will use up more of the read/write cycles.

You format those drive and if you want to make shure that evrything is erase you can use file shredder it's a freeware that you can find there http://www.fileshredder.org/ This freeware will be helpfull over every drive you have. Instead of using the thrash can you can safely erase what you really don't need. After using file shredder your drive will be clean as a brand new one.

I wish I had check this site before following a suggestion. A mistake. Told to drag Icon of back upto trash. Now I can get it back.

I was using a LaCie 599,11GB. Now when I drag the HD to Restore from Utilities it moves to Source, but the LaCie will not move to Destination. A new image " Untitled" appears. It will move to Destination.

Restore to Untitled runs about a minute and no longer. It quits.

I am tired of this flustration. Where would I get a drive you referenced? I have a iMac w/ OS 10.6.8Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and Memory 3GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Graham P. didn't ask if he could buy new drives but how to safely reuse his old ones.Supposing the drives are still in a good shape low formatting should do the job (of course no quick formatting).As written he wants to reuse the disks for his own purpose so data safety should not be in question.

If they are already infected, I take them to a separate machine that has an antivirus installed, one that I use just for this purpose, plug them in as external devices and immediately format them at least twice.

Not the quick format option, but the full format.

If there is sensitive data on the drive, then I use a wiping method that does at least 7 passes or the data can be retrieved using various tools.

So to sum up: you can plug them into a different computer that has the antivirus installed, right click on the drive and then hit format or tools/format depending on the OS.

If there is sensitive data on the drive that you don't want retrieved ever, use the CCleaner wipe feature with 7 passes minimum or use Eraser.

Blessings,I tried what you suggested-reformatting the SATA drive. After wiping, I went to restart and now it is asking for a password!! I DIDN'T password protect this drive, so I don't know what is going on.1. How can I get past the request for password screen?2. Do I need another reformat?3. Is there something else I can do to solve this problem?

If you are using a non admin account on Win7 then to reactivate a volume (drive) you need to login as admin or enter the admin password to register the device on the system if the drive is installed internally. There should not be a password for a non encrypted drive. If you did format the drive and then used file system encryption then you have a problem.

To break the encryption request a linux live CD or USB stick will do the trick. It is also very handy for blanking drives.

If the drive is installed within the computer it will be listed in the partitioning program as sda if it is the primary drive and if it is the second drive it will show up as sdb. Either way you will be able to see where you have your existing windows OS installed usually this will show up as drive sda but not always. Just make certain you do not wipe your existing windows or just unplug the drive that you have it on and be certain you do not format anything other than the drive you want to nuke and/or reformat!

The partitioning program will unmount the drive, which in turn stops the ntfs file encryption request then you simply reformat to ntfs without drive encryption. The encryption request is at the beginning of the drive so you need to blank to unformatted first (remove partition). Make sure that the drive is then seen as nothing but free space. Do not forget that if you use another file system other than ntfs or vfat your drive will not be seen as a file system under Windows.

If you did encrypt the drive then you must be using Vista win7 or XP pro, as drive encryption is not available with the "home" versions.

As to how to wipe a drive with linux it is a breeze with command line. If you open a terminal window with a live cd or usb stick your installed primary drive will show up as sda. The command to wipe the drive by overwriting is (without the quotes) "dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/urandom" If your live cd or usb stick mounted the drive automatically then you will need to simply unmount the drive and blank the drive without a mounted file system. In linux (the same as most Unix and BSD systems and windows for that matter) drives are accessible as system devices even if you cannot read the file system on the drive because you have unmounted the file system.

Essentially all dd does with this command is write random numbers to all sectors of the drive including the boot sector so it will be completely blank of data. It can take a long time if your drive is a big one but this is essentially what commercial drive wiping software does.

This causes huge amounts of confusion with users who do not understand the difference between the device and the file system on the device! Think of it simply as a device and you will see what I am getting at, the file system is on the device and needs to be indexed on the running operating system as a file system that can be read.

However if you unmount...in linux the command umount, then the device can still be written to even though it cannot be read by the higher level of the os that reads file systems. dd is a core program that writes to devices and does not care about file systems. Windows does exactly the same thing but obscures how it actually does things and makes users find freeware to do things that only the "pro" versions do!

Without quotes the command to blank a drive is "dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda"

If the drive you want to blank is sdb then substitute sdb for sda. In the original post I reversed the syntax by mistake.

if (means the file or device you are writing from) "if" just stands for input file

of (means the device or file that you are writing the input to)

dead simple and really reliable like most great stuff.

I always use dd before I sell an old computer with a drive and no OS installed. Silly as it sounds an old scsi drive that I once purchased at a used computer store actually had all of a dentists patient files on it unencrypted. Fortunately I am not the type that snoops, but the so called Windows IT guy that sold off the computer parts should have known better!

Format the drive using the Full method. Then open a command prompt and run "cipher /w x:\ " (Without the quotes, where X: is the drive letter of the drive in question. This works for Windows OS'es from Windows 2000 onward. For Vista, Windows 7 (and I assume, Windows you will probably have to run CMD as an administrator. This method uses tools (format and cipher) available within the OS; no need to download anything!

Unfortunately to use cipher you need to have encryption installed on Windows which means the pro series only. For those who do not have it the best answer is to unplug the drive that they do not want to format or blank, as it is really easy to nuke the wrong drive. I have pulled this DOH! Homer Simpson trick in the past years ago and nuked my OS by mistake...but that was with Windows 95 so it really wasn't a loss

If they are formatting the drive that they have their os installed on then they will not be using windows unless they have a copy of windows. Unfortunately most people who buy computers nowadays do not even get a real copy of windows with their pc! So using freeware or drive manufactures isos is the easiest way to learn how to deal with drives correctly.

One other suggestion for those who have windows without Nero or whatever and might have a hard time correctly burning downloaded ISOs of Linux or the drive manufactures ISOs of freedos with their drive utilities.

My answer is to always use iso recorder which is a great freeware utility that does not create cd or dvd coasters the way that windows 7 does with iso files. It works on XP, Vista and 7. It gives you a right click menu to burn iso directly to disk and does not screw up if something else requests hdd disk write access the way the native windows 7 iso burning software does. Before Windows 7 the ability to burn ISO to disk required add on software, after Windows 7 the feature was added but somehow it always seems to screw up Linux ISOs for some strange unknown reason..

Burn the ISO to a DVD, put the hard drives in a computer with no other hard drives connected, boot DBAN up, choose a wiping algorithm (DoD Short would be fine), and then let it wipe. It'll have all the data wiped and safe for you to format (quick format) in Windows and be clear of viruses.

I've used Dban on dozens of drives both IDE and SATA over the last couple of years. I have never had a problem. I keep an old PC set up at work to boot from the cd, then I can just plug a drive in, power up and type autonuke at the prompt to wipe the drive.

as far as data is concerned, including the toughest virus' and malware by using Ddban.You have multiple methods of erasing right up to military secrecy strength of erasure which will allow for any level of paranoia (like mine).Virus like Conficker (Downadup) were able to reactivate after quick format, although full format got the job done, but there is nothing like not having that nagging doubt.

Viruses and spyware generally reside as programs files and the data are usually fine. therefore as long as no programs can run from that drive you will be able to work on in internally.

Quick format on your own computer will work as long as the infected drive is a secondary drive and you will be the one using it again. This will just 'delete' files which will only change the first bit of the name and make to rest of the sectors available to be written over. This quick and dirty method will be fine as long as you just start using the disk it will be fine overwriting all files over time. The upside is convenience. The other side (I don't say downside because it may not be) is that the files COULD be recovered as long those particular locations have not been overwritten.

The next level is a full format which is really not different form quick format except it also reads sector by soector and locates bad sectors, separating them out.

Wiping - as offered with CCleaner or other programs mentioned. That will will overwrite the sector making recovery almost impossible. The more times it is over written the more secure the disk.

Good to know that you intend to re-cycle your old HD's. Smart move and you save money. I'd agree with the other community members that reformatting the drives is all that you need do. Just make sure to use the Full format option and not the Quick format.

After formatting you can still run a virus/malware removal program. Although I'd be surprised if the program detects anything. But you never know and you can never be too safe when dealing in the cyber-world of computers. So do what makes you feel the safest.

There's one other option and that's to take the drives to a professional and let them sanitize the drive(s). Of course you'll pay a price for that type of service.

Graham, you said these are old "internal" HD's. That means either:

(a) you've already removed them - or -(b) they are still inside another computer yet to be removed

If (b) then hopefully the computer is still operable so that you can perform the reformat operation, if not you'll have to remove the drive. After removing the drive you still have to make it recognizable as a HD to another computer that is capable of running the reformat option (not to mention recognizable to be used as a storage device).

Not to worry...you can purchase a USB enclosure that will make the drive recognizable to any computer and format-able to any OS. Just purchase the right size enclosure for the drive. As a rule most Laptop HD's are 2.5 inch and Case HD's are 3.5 inch. 2.5 inch drives in a case are rare but not unheard of.

The next step in buying the proper enclosure is to determine if the HD you are wanting to convert to external storage is IDE or SATA. If it is the former be sure to purchase an enclosure that is IDE to USB as there is a necessary circuitry conversion to make the IDE-HD recognizable to the modern computer which are commonly built with SATA controllers. Firewire connection is available on some enclosures.

Once you have the HD snugly in its new enclose plug it in to any USB equipped computer and run the Full format option. Windows will format the drive to NTFS standards. Apple products will format the drive to HFS+. If you would like to use the same drive between a Windows and a Mac OS then format the drive to FAT32.

FYI, some enclosures come with a power supply and others may have two USB connections to draw sufficient power. But in most scenarios a single USB connection is all that is required for the 5400 RPM HD.

HD enclosures can be purchased from just about any well known computer retailer either on-line or brick-n-mortar (including Amazon and eBay). Those made from aluminum or a metal alloy are the best as they dissipate heat more effectively. Prices range from $7.00 to $50.00 although I'd avoid the bargain basement price. You get what you pay for.

There is an easier way: You can buy an adapterset which connects a bare drive via usb with the pc. The adapter is equipped with a power supply, so you can use all kinds of drives. It is also cheaper than a case.Gerhard

True, but the OP said that he wants to use the drives as external drives. These low-cost adapters are great for quickie maintenance, but I don't think you'd want your bare drives exposed to "the elements" during ongoing use as an external drive. Even if only used occasionally for backup, then storage; a drive dock might be a more convenient choice.

Hi Graham, good advice so far. What I would do is download the live CD version of Partition Wizard ISO and burnit to a CD, then boot from the CD. Use Partition- Modify-Hide Partition to hide all the disk(s) you don't want to reformat. This isn't strictly necessary but it will prevent any possibility of infection from the disks you are reclaiming.

Then for each disk you want to reclaim, Use Partition Wizard Partition-Delete and select the "Secure Erase" option. for all partitions on the disk. This will delete the partition(s) and overwrite with binary zeros. Your disk is now clean and empty.

Use Partition Wozard to allocate whatever partition(s) you want to define on the disk, You might even want to rebuild the MBR (master Boot Record) to make sure that is clean too.

When you've done this for all disks, unhide the partitions you originally hid and reboot the machine into Windows. Format (Full Format) all of the new partitions you created above and you are done.

This will take some time but you can guarantee there is no malware on any of the diisks.